THE murder mystery weekend, Irishstyle, is a far remove from the ColonelMustard-in-the-Library brand beloved of our island neighbours. The only thing that really gets murdered on these weekends is the humble pint. Loads of them. Renvyle House, the atmospheric hotel on the west coast, plays host to The Usual Suspects four times a year and a skilled and ultraconvivial troupe of players ensures a fabulous weekend's entertainment.

It began like a scene from the opening page of an Agatha Christie novel, as we approached our destination in the dark, with a gale howling in from the Atlantic and the rain beating down like a demented drummer. The authenticity was further confirmed by the scorching welcome of Renvyle and its enormous open turf fires.

The former country house of poet and surgeon Oliver St John Gogarty is wonderfully suited to a weekend with an air of mild menace and intrigue. The sea views, gloomy corridors and pervading sweet scent of peat easily evoke an atmosphere of times gone by while its comfortable rooms and high-class kitchen ensure the guest feels well pampered.

The murder mystery is a multi-act play conducted over the three days, with the scene set at a welcoming reception at 9pm on the Friday. The six players act out the roles . . . Pirates of the Black Atlantic was staged on our weekend . . . and the guests play the role of the sleuth as they try to work out the clues as to motive and opportunity. With the first murder (that of old Ben Dunn) committed, the entire party repairs to the bar and what follows is a mixture of theatre, ballad session and dockside bawdy house until the early hours.

Saturday is your own (recommended is a visit to the spectacular Kylemore Abbey although there are many delightful sights in the area) but it is important to check out the clues posted on the hotel noticeboard before dinner. Once that memorable meal is complete, the cast repairs to the bar as the plot further unfolds before the guests . . .usually in fancy dress . . . are presented with the final question: whodunnit?

With that, the Clouseaus are separated from the Kojaks as the guests mill around tying up loose ends and discarding red herrings. All is revealed on Sunday morning and prizes awarded to the best detectives.

Brian Walshe, a former academic oenologist, founded The Usual Suspects 15 years ago and employs professional actors and enthusiastic amateurs in a circuit that now occupies 11 months of the year. All up and down the west coast they travel, hosting their own shows which include One Wedding And a Funeral, Guys And Molls, Failte Towers, Murder On The Overnight Express and The Last Remake Of The Quiet Man. The thespian talent we sampled included Eamon Draper (Glenroe, The Riordans, Fair City, Ros na Run, Killinaskully), the excellent Collette Whistler (Taibhdearc), Brian Walshe (Quiet Man, Angela Mooney Dies Again) and Lorraine Fear (Brookside).

With the magnificent surroundings of Renvyle playing a starring role in proceedings, it is hard to imagine a more relaxing weekend with just enough fun and games to keep you entertained, and a good balance struck between activity and leisure. The Usual Suspects next visit Renvyle House on 18 February and early booking is essential. Two nights B&B, with a gourmet dinner, leisure activities and all entertainment included, is an excellent 215 per person sharing.

Yoga & Detox Weekend, Burren Yoga and Meditation Centre, Co Galway

TO my great regret the yoga trend had passed me by. By the time I realised that there was actually something in the bendy discipline, everyone's granny could now do bikram. I was far too proud to pitch up at a beginner's class, 10 years after the fact. But setting out on my yoga and detox expedition, I was hopeful that yoga would be something for which I possessed a hidden talent. The detox aspect was also welcome. After several years of being vaguely healthy Monday to Friday and freestyling at weekends, a few days without caffeine, salt, sugar, alcohol or meat could only be a good thing.

The Burren Yoga and Meditation Centre nestles behind trees on a tiny country road, on one of Ireland's starkest vistas. If you're looking to 'get away' from it all, you couldn't pick a better location. Since 1999, it's been offering a variety of yoga courses: ashtanga, iyengar, bikram, kundalini and satyananda, as well as pilates and veggie cooking courses. It's run by Dave Brocklebank, who boasts 25 years' experience of meditating and over 15 years of practising yoga.

Communal living is an important aspect of the experience. Visitors take turns doing the wash-up and generally mucking in to keep the place clean. Accommodation takes the form of dorms. The atmosphere is tranquil and everything is warm and pleasant, from the under-floor heating to the colour scheme.

The general presumption is that one will go hungry when detoxing but this turned out to be far from the case. At no time did I suffer hunger pangs . . . it's impossible to do so when you're consuming the vast amount of raw vegetables as we did. Our light meal the first night consisted of a sprout cabbage wrap, tomato salsa, hummus and veg and green tea. All lovely, and so on to our first class of breathwork and relaxation. This weekend's yoga is satyananda, a traditional form with gentle postures. After an hour of this, I eagerly embrace my bed at 10.30pm and have a deep and dreamless sleep.

Standing on the Burren, at 7am the next day, pouring salt water through my nose as part of the Neti cleansing process, I'm not so sure. But it sounds a lot more repulsive than it actually is and with my sinuses cleared out, I'm ready for an 8.15am yoga class and a fruit salad breakfast. Time at the Burren Centre passes in a gently structured, relaxed way. There are talks on nutrition, smoothie breaks, free time for strolls, lunch, a terrific massage, more yoga classes, dinner and yet more yoga. As per the instructions on the website I haven't brought any reading material and my phone is turned of. In any case, between the dry body brushing and the removal of shoes every time I enter the house, I hardly have a spare moment. I develop a spot (hurrah! the detox is working), discover that I love wheatgrass shots and become aware of muscles that haven't been flexed since PE classes 15 years ago. Again, I sleep like a dead thing.

By Sunday morning, I've totally got the hang of this yoga lark and I'm quite sorry that I've only two yoga sessions left. We leave the Burren at 2pm but it's at least 8pm before I can stomach a retox in the form of Spanish meats and wine in the Market Bar. And it tasted superb. The legacy of my weekend is a lasting love of wheatgrass and the realisation that there's nothing inherently wrong in how I live my life. But sometimes you need a weekend in the Burren to make you appreciate that.

Cooking Weekend, Belle Isle Cookery School, Co Fermanagh

ARRIVING at the grandiose 470-acre Belle Isle Estate in Lisbellaw, Co Fermanagh, on a wet Thursday night, for a three-day 'Autumn Entertaining' cookery course, we were more than a little nervous. I hadn't owned up to the fact that I was a vegetarian, and not knowing my shank from my elbow, was beginning to think we'd made an awful mistake. Both my husband, Stefan, and I love food and cooking for others, but our fare can probably be best described as 'rustic' and our knowledge of wines isn't much better.

But as soon as the small group of eight people were introduced over coffee the next morning, I knew it was going to be a great weekend. I was partnered with a retired policeman from Northern Ireland who, having already completed four cookery weekends at Belle Isle, discovered a passion for food. "I spent the first year of my retirement landscaping my garden and then I thought what am I going to do now? , " explained my cookery partner.

A mother and daughter from London on a weekend away, a couple from Watford who said they couldn't face serving lasagne to their friends anymore, and a Benedictine monk and his sister from Dublin, who just decided they would do something very different for the weekend, completed the merry bunch.

Our chef Liz Moore put us all at our ease right from the start. Her demonstrations were simple, entertaining and easy to watch. Ingredients were weighed out for us and we didn't have to wash any dishes. We kicked off with bread-making, and were challenged to be as creative in our bread shapes as we could. The monk took first prize for his 'snake' of tomato and fennel!

We covered a huge range of dishes, so that by lunchtime Friday we were sitting down to fresh bread, Spanish chicken stew and apple and walnut tart, all washed down with a few glasses of wine.

After lunch and a siesta, we set to work again, this time on shanks of lamb with puy lentils. I now know what a shank is, and that it's apparently one of the cheapest cuts of meat around. In fact, it smelt so good I actually considered giving up being a veggie, but I didn't! We also made a delicious risotto with mushrooms, potato and tarragon pie, carrot filo rolls, tarte tatin, poached pears with balsamic vinegar and dolce latte cheese, and gooey chocolate puddings, all of which we ate that evening.

Next day, Stefan took over as we were sort of sharing the weekend owing to the presence of a small two-year old who needed entertaining, which we happily found in the form of donkeys, cows, and an old dog on the estate. Anyway, Saturday was quite a meaty day, duck confit and stuffed parma ham, so it worked out well, as Stefan could gorge on food rarely, if ever, served in our house.

Again that night we sat down to a feast, followed by more cooking on Sunday morning and finally a lunch. The atmosphere was great, and everyone agreed it would be a perfect weekend to do on your own, or with a group of friends. We stayed in the stone cottages in the courtyard which were really warm and comfortable. But for extra cost you can stay in the 17th-century castle, owned by the Duke of Abercorn. The estate sleeps up to 74 people and is a beautiful tranquil place to be for three days.

We'd definitely do it again, and have promised our friends that bean stew is finally off the menu this season!

Parachute Jumping Weekend, Tyrone

AT 3,500 feet, there is no margin for error.

A human body will hit the earth in around 20 seconds if there is nothing to restrain gravity's pull. It takes about four seconds for the chute to open and another couple of seconds to make the necessary checks. If it hasn't opened and you haven't yet had a heart attack you've got less than 10 seconds to take action: pull a chord to release the original chute, cut it away and inflate a reserve chute before 1,000ft.

If you haven't done it by then you could well be in for a heavy landing or worse. You could die. The trainers keep emphasising this: parachute jumping is a really safe sport, they say, before spending hours drilling you on how to avoid death. In truth, the odds are with you. Your backpack (containing two parachutes) is attached to a line within the fuselage of the tiny tin box.

When you jump, the line unravels and once you have cleared the plane it opens.

The four seconds that this takes are the most surreal moments I have ever lived through. The rational mind is thrown into confusion, unable to fix itself to anything:

gravity, earth, sky, the hum of the single propeller of the plane, the noise of the freezing air above Coleraine, the vermillion beauty of the sun setting over the perfect blue Antrim mountains.

Rumour spills around that in eight years our instructor has presided over how many refusals? Two. I thought it would be more like two every day as both planes in the Wild Geese Parachute Club are busy from sunrise to sunset, ferrying the insane foursquare for their adrenalin fix. From 7.30am until 3pm, you are drilled sergeantmajor like from floor to classroom and back to floor. Everything is covered: the posture to adopt when jumping, the count, the malfunction procedures, the landing, the theory behind steering your parachute, what to do if you land on an electricity pylon, a greenhouse, a field full of bullocks.

The only thing that isn't addressed is refusal. There is no procedure for chickening out. Eight hours in a freezing hangar, jumping off 12-foot high platforms to simulate landing, sitting in a mock cockpit, strapped and dangling in a harness while being shaken by the overbearing instructor.

No laughing, this might save your life. And what about the weather? If the wind is more than 18mph you can't jump. All this lying on mats with your arms spreadeagled shouting "1,000, 2,000, 3,000" and you might not even get to jump that day.

The effectiveness of the training is the power of repetition. There is no time to think about what you are about to do. I've been more nervous before exams, job interviews, first dates. There are no nerves before a parachute jump, just disbelief at the ground below. And then when you jump everything goes blank for a few moments until there it is above you, your beautiful, fully inflated canopy. And the joy of being alive. By the time you glide towards the ground your whole body is warm and a gentle giggle pays thanks to the fear.

Thanks go out to Marcus Craig, whose company Adventure Tours Northern Ireland arranges a wide range of activities for groups (team-building, corporate, hen/stag parties) including go-karts, pony trekking, fishing, golf, quad bikes and simple weekend breaks from his four-star selfcatering guesthouse in west Tyrone. Don't think about it, just go.